On The Legal Status Of Religious Communities

Freedom of religious belief is a fundamental right regulated in the provisions ofour Constitution. It is an important premise to define the legal status of religiousgroups when referring to guarantee of freedom of religion. There are many researcheson religious legislation in home and experiences about it aboard, based on whichthis paper tries to do a systematic and comprehensive study on the legal status, rightsand obligations, and management systems of religious groups.The first part of this paper focuses on the legal characteristics of religious groups,exploring the historical evolution, types, and legal characteristics about the legalconcept of religious groups; The second part analyzes the status quo of the religiousgroups’ legal status in China, combing and analyzing legislation and itsimplementation of our religious groups; the third part outlines the insufficiencies oflegislation and its implementation in the field of religious group administration; thefourth part analyzes the practical significance of the research and exploration of thereligious groups’ legal status in China, considering the international and domesticenvironment; the fifth part gives some recommendations in legislation of the religiousgroups’ legal status, and explores the ought state of it in China, based on abroadexperience.The Innovations in this paper are as follows: firstly, clear demonstration is madein legal characteristics of religious groups to understand the legal concept of"religious groups" much better, which helps explore the legal status of religiousgroups; secondly, sufficient discussion is done in the practical significance of thedefinition in religious groups’legal status. Only understand correctly the practicalsignificance of defining the religious groups’legal status, can we properly do researchon the administration of the "religious groups" in a accurate way; thirdly, comparativeanalysis is adopted to research the legislation of religious groups in china, combiningthe insufficiency of the legislation and implementation in religious groups withconditions of our country, to put out available suggestions and countermeasures;fourthly, The ought state is proposed in defining the religious groups’legal status in our country, based on the research in the religious groups’legal status abroad andanalysis on China’s national conditions; fifthly, the necessity to distinguish thelegislations of religion and cult is proved on the basis of knowledge about the researchresults of the cult law in France.Based on the comprehensive analysis, several suggestions are put forward in thispaper to improve the status quo of religious affairs in China and protect the rights ofreligious groups and religious believers better: a unified religious law should beformulated; regulatory autonomy relations should be balanced; the emerging religiousgroups should be properly treated; a anti-cult law should be developed. All of thesefour suggestions are mainly aimed to better the status quo of China’s religious affairsadministration,...